Farmhouse

Considering the looming wrecking ball, acute financial troubles, and the fear that their gem of a historical space might never get recognized, members of the Historical Society didn't have it easy. But earlier this month, their decade of work paid off, and the Peter Mott House, a 156-year-old farmhouse that was a station on the Underground Railroad, was dedicated as a museum. "Many times, I thought we weren't going to be able to save it. So many doors were banged in our face," said Clarence Still, a Lawnside historian and lifelong resident of the borough, which bills itself as the only historically African American borough in the northern United States.

In the benighted years when Alfred Hitchcock was still regarded as nothing more than a slick commercial director in this country, his genius was revered in France. And his influence plainly lives on in films such as Dominik Moll's With a Friend Like Harry. Although Moll's movie teems with references to Strangers on a Train, The Trouble With Harry, and Psycho, it is no pale imitation of the master in the Brian De Palma manner. With a Friend Like Harry is an homage, with its own voice and dark-hued humor.

Orleans Construction Corp. has agreed to postpone demolition of a 19th-century home at Mann and Welsh Roads while it considers a resident's offer to buy the house. The house was scheduled to be torn down yesterday to make way for 24 upscale houses on 39 acres. A new demolition date has not been set. Edwin Thompson, who lives on Mann Road less than 200 yards from the proposed development, asked Orleans to set a price for the house and part of the land around it at an informal meeting Monday between Orleans, township officials, and residents working to preserve the home.

The efforts of some local residents may not be enough to save a 19th-century home at Mann and Welsh Roads from being bulldozed at the end of this month. A demolition permit has been signed for the former home of farmer Josiah Mann. The structure is scheduled to be razed to make room for 24 luxury homes on 40 acres. In a letter to the Horsham Preservation and Historical Association, Bensalem-based Orleans Construction Corp. said that the group could photograph, document and salvage parts of the house until Feb. 21, when the Horsham Fire Department is scheduled use the house for practice drills.

Tracy Cass barely knew David Powell. But she knew the half-bushels of peaches and apples stacked next to his old red barn on Tomlinson Road. As a child, Cass recalled, she visited Powell's orchard with her family, and the fruit tasted natural and special. After Powell died in September 1999 at age 92, his stucco-covered stone farmhouse - which local restoration buffs date to the pre-Revolutionary War era - was destined for mothballs. The white paint was peeling, the pine floors were rotting, and the basement resembled a scene from a horror flick, Cass, now 40, recalled.

A coalition of buyers, including Delaware County and the long-homeless county historical society, have agreed to purchase the township's last remaining farm and preserve its rolling meadows and 18th-century farmhouse. The $2.4 million agreement of sale for the 34 acres of Greenbank Farm was brokered by its neighbor, the Natural Lands Trust conservation group. The trust also contributed to the purchase. Marple Township will pay the largest amount of the price, $1 million, in its biggest land purchase since the 1960s.

After a year of renovations, Rosemary McNair is able to show off the recently revealed history of the Farmhouse at the Grange Estate like a proud homeowner. She points out with equal enthusiasm a new drainage system that will safeguard the foundation, and an antique painted chest and graceful Windsor chairs that occupy a room inside. "This old house is smiling, because of all our work," McNair said. The Farmhouse at the Grange Estate, built in the mid-19th century, has come a long way during the year of repairs.

The carriage house is little more than a fieldstone shell without a roof. The 18th-century farmhouse next to it is gutted. In a few months, though, the broken-down Joseph Garrett homestead on Paoli Pike next to Applebrook Park will be converted from shell to showpiece as the new headquarters of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry. "If we are hosting a site selection committee from a major corporation, Applebrook will showcase Chester County as a premier place to live and work," said Rob Powelson, 31, president of the chamber for six years.

When she was a girl in the 1930s, Mary Hoyt-Mann often would sit on a tire swing outside her relative's colonial farmhouse here. She would look out over the endless golden fields in the summer and wonder what it must have been like in 1754, when the farmhouse was built. But during the 15-year period when she visited the Arbormeade Farm off Mann Road, she had no idea that over the hill - blocked by a stand of trees - there was another home that might have belonged to her family.

It's all over, even the shouting. Montgomery Square Shopping Center is open for business, ending a long struggle among the township, its residents, the developer and the local historical society over the 176-acre Witchwood Farm located across Route 202 from Montgomeryville Mall, once the last major tract of open space here. The land dispute involved lawsuits, frequently raised voices, and meetings that went on until the wee hours, John Nagel, township manager, said. "We're still working on some final details," Nagel said.